Coronavirus: US Patent and Trademark Office Extends Deadlines Further

The CARES Act gave the US Patent and Trademark Office the authority to toll, waive, adjust, or modify deadlines related to patent and trademark owners in light of the coronavirus pandemic.  At the end of March, the USPTO announced it would do just that.  As I summarized here, certain deadlines falling between March 27 and April 30 would receive 30-day extensions when accompanied by a statement regarding the effect of the pandemic on the deadline.

The Office has now modified that deadline extension.  Yesterday, the USPTO announced that deadlines falling between March 27 and May 31 will now be extended up to and including June 1, provided that the filing or fee payment is accompanied by a specific statement that the delay was due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Please note – this is not an additional extension.  It does not grant another 10, 15, or 30 days to file.  Rather, it simply says that eligible deadlines can now be extended (under the right circumstances) up to a specific day – June 1.  If your deadline was originally due March 27, this gives you two additional months.  But, if your deadline fell on May 31, this only gives you a single extra day.  It s unclear at this time why the Office chose to create an extension running to a specific day rather than an extension of all deadlines by X number of days, as it previously had.

It is possible that this extension allowance will be modified again.